The only thing I have purchased that did not quite live up to all the reviews was the Flip Pal Scanner. It is a great idea and very useful in some cases but I took it along with me for an archive visit and found it very hard to use in books that do not open and lay flat. It was easier to use their copier than to scan on most of the larger books. I did find it helpful for scanning small pictures, it was much easier than my table top scanner. http://flip-pal.com/

Hope you have added great things to your research arsenals this year !!